Factors in the Formation of an International Fair Network in Poland in the 16th and 17th Centuries

Abstract

The emergence of a network of international fairs in Poland in the 15th to 17th centuries is one of the most characteristic phenomena in Polish economic history at the transition from the Middle Ages to early modern times. Previous scholarship focused on overseas trade via Gdańsk, leaving aside the strongly developed domestic trade and its connections to commercial exchange with Eastern Europe.
This article analyzes three groups of factors behind the formation of the international fair network in Poland (Gniezno, Poznań, Toruń, Lublin, Kraków, and others): general European factors, specific Polish factors, and factors specific to individual fairs, with particular attention to merchant credit (Zyrograph), Poland's geographic position between East and West, and the economic upturn in the Lithuanian-Ruthenian territories.
The study draws on customs books from Grodno (1600) and Brześć (1605), city books of Poznań, Gniezno, and Lublin, and secondary literature on East European markets (Bachruschin, Tichomirow, Wawrzyńczykowa).
The analysis shows that the revival of fair trade was generally driven by the growth of commodity mass and mass consumption. Specific to Poland was its geographic position as a transit zone in East-West exchange, and the economic upturn in Russia, Belorussia, and Ukraine with their growing demand for Western goods. The customs books document intensive trade: through Brześć alone 452 transits passed to Lublin in 1605, with furs, pelts, and wax moving East to West and cloth, metalware, and spices West to East. In the second half of the 17th century, the Swedish invasion and the growing importance of the Arkhangelsk sea route and Leipzig fairs led to the decline of Polish fair trade.